Finding Out Just Where That Is
by starinhercorner
Summary: "It's a dance!" Season 1 Supermartian fluff.


**Author's Notes: Okay so this is really old—like, from early January 2012—and was going to be part of a larger fic that I'm never going to finish nor would I really want to, so I figured I'd clean it up and maybe top it off tonight so it could finally see the light of the internet.**

* * *

The lights blink like tired eyes, steadily flashing with less and less intensity before finally dozing in a state of darkness. Her hand comes out from that darkness to tug at his wrist, and he note the silver charm bracelet sliding along her arm and the harvest-gold lacquer glittering on her nails. As she pulls him further in from the periphery of the scene, the paper-stiff cuff of a white sleeve snakes down his arm to the cusp of her hand, and a looser black sleeve nearly eclipses it. He catches a glimpse of her slick red lips glinting, bowed up in a smile and pinched in a faltering repression of a full-blown grin—before a wide door appears and opens behind her, swinging out of his sight as quickly as it had arrived. New lights spray out past it, arranged on wires and in a mixed bag of colors, and a chandelier inundated with crystals and candles dangles high above… the red and blue lines of a basketball court?

_Is this… our school gym? _He looks down intending to meet her eyes but instead gets the sight of a cream silk ribbon tying itself in a bow around her neck.

_I'm not sure yet. _She mentally coaxes his vision up to her eyes, which look off to the side in contemplation. The chandelier in the background droops down as its intricate form sags into the mold of a disco ball, which rotates on its axis no more than five times before ricocheting into its initial position, springing back into its life as a chandelier. She releases his wrist and suckles at her lower lip as her thoughts spin with decisions and revisions. He tugs at his newfound collar, unaccustomed to having buttons closing in on his throat. _Either way, this is a…?_

Her lashes flick like light switches, feeding details into the vague haze behind her, like the white linen smoothed over buffet tables and the swiveling silhouettes of other teenagers. Her hand drift up to his neck and press into his collar. The fabric creeps outward inch by inch under her touch until the fit is much easier to tolerate. _It's a dance! _But with that, she recoils. _That's… okay, right? I mean, all of this is… um…_

_Y-Yeah, I wasn't trying to sa— _He reaches for her arm, but when their skin makes contact, something echoes between them; and the closeness of their minds only sharpens the sound as his own, albeit affected, voice booms in his ears before the words give way to pain.

"…_Stupid fantasy world...!"_

The skin of her fists crinkles and pales into gathered silk, cream like her ribbon, and the fabric shoots up her arms into opera-length gloves, separating her from him. His hand drops to his side. The memory alone is uncomfortable enough in his own consciousness, but through the filter of hers it loses the context of his emotions at the time and reverberates solely as an attack.

"That wasn't supposed to! I… I didn't mean for you to… hear… that…" The door behind her slams shut. It had been the gymnasium after all, and now they stand in an empty hallway. The lights buzz like insects. The lockers line themselves up like prison cells against either wall. She looks back at him with her lips flexed urgently into one of her standard smiles. An actress's smile. "Hello, Megan! The whole point of this is to have fun! Sorry I—"

"No." He cups her shoulder in his hand, and it silences her as effectively as if he had laid his hand across her mouth. He tries his best to send her the memory of the first apology he ever gave her, but since most of his experience with telepathic communication comes from being on the receiving end, it arrives in her thoughts in fits and spurts cut by interludes of static. He can't possibly know how static has endeared itself to her; how Earth television signals would falter back home and she would hunt for ghosts in-between the shimmering flecks of black and white, anticipation shooting sparks through her chest, knowing Earth smiles and Earth colors would come back at any second and that she was so _close_.

And now, in here, he is closer to her than anyone has ever been. She can sense how their breathing has synchronized on the outside, and how his muscles have relaxed where they had initially been tense. The connection between them feels like liquid, smooth and rhythmic, shimmering. Her arms slip out of their gloves and back into skin, and she takes one of his hands in her two. The doors open behind her like lungs exhaling, a breeze kicking up some tufts of her hair as she gives him a smile.

_Let's dance._

_..._

He has no idea how to dance. Over and over, he insists this; but much like bullets would bounce off his chest if fired, his doubts don't make a dent in her conviction. She draws her arms up around his neck like a scarf, and he, seeing it as a logical next step, sets his hands to her waist. She gasps, and he gulps—but then she beams like she's just made the cheerleading squad all over again. It's only after she has led him further into the sparse crowd that he realizes his instinct had been on the mark, based on what the other couples are doing.

The music is soft in his ears despite the speakers, and he can't discern the melody or the instruments being played so much as he can feel the progression in his pace, as it directs his feet. Moving back and forth with no destination would try his patience in any other situation, but there's something soothing about moving with her that catches him by surprise. There's warmth in her eyes that sets an otherwise sleepy expression alight, and for some reason, he starts to think about how the straps of her dress set into her shoulders and press into her skin. It makes his face feel as red as her lips. The small pocket of space that their bodies frame itches at him, at his arms and his chest; and very quietly, very quickly, he laments the fact that he has to hold her at length from him while they sway.

The crowd thins out gradually, weeding out the faceless figures from the backdrop. Mixed in with the small cluster of classmates and strangers that remain, Conner notices two very familiar faces behaving in a very unfamiliar way.

_Hey, is that…?_

_Uh-yup! _She smirks at her imagination's projection of Wally and Artemis, the former in a tuxedo and tie and the latter in a backless lavender gown with her hair in an intricate bun. _I think they'd be nice together_.

_If you say so. Wait, aren't they usually arguing? _He watches "Wally" come close to letting "Artemis" fall to the floor, and when they just keep dancing like it's nothing, his brow furrows.

_Yeah, but I think it's because they care a lot about what the other thinks of them. Or—at least—I can sense that they care about each other __**a lot**__. _She watches "Artemis" take "Wally" by the hand and spin him around and around and around until the sight becomes too funny for her to handle.

…_Then, should we argue more? Because... I..._

_Huh? No… I don't like arguing with you. _Her eyes skirt away from his. Without them as anchor points, his eyes drift downward. In doing so, they impart to him three pieces of information: one, that her shoes have heels that are long and thin, which explain the increase in her height; two, that those heels aren't quite touching the floor, that she's still managing to step all over and around his feet, although he doesn't feel it.

_Yeah. I like this better._

_Really? _M'gann looks back at him, and he swears that the expression on her face is the one he's seen in Wolf's when Wolf begs for food. _You like this?_

The chandelier catches his eye again. It's spinning. He lets out a snort that's powerful enough to pull his head down by the nose, and her arms bounce faintly against his shaking shoulders. _C-Conner?_ she asks, and his response is to remove his hands from her waist—and for a split second, she couldn't be more devastated—but his arms ease around her instead. With her added height, the crook of her neck is at perfect level with his, and he sets his forehead into the curve. Her arms stiffen with surprise, stick up in the air where his head has left them.

"Really," he breathes into her skin—and her mind intensifies the puff of imaginary air on her collarbone so that she can feel it in her toes, and her hair, and in the pit of her stomach. All at once she wants to grow to something monumental in his arms, stretch herself out past all her seams and envelope him—and she wants to be enveloped, too, to curl into something that will fit in the smallest parts of him. She lets out a small, dizzied moan. The sense of music he had thrumming at the back of his thoughts is replaced by her heartbeat; or perhaps the two rhythms merge, he isn't quite sure. He lifts his head to lean back into her embrace but can't seem to find the place where her wrists overlap, and it's his turn for a moment of panic. But she's quick to replicate the arrangement of their bodies outside of her mind by pressing her forehead into his. She tucks her arms in so that her elbows are against his chest and her hands are framing his face, sinking their fingertips into his hair.

_Then let's dance._

He glances one last time out beyond her and sees that they're the only ones left in the room_._ The gym has lost its four corners to the shadows and the lights have struck the floor into boundlessness. Her first step is to the left, and he follows; and when he makes them spin, she gives the soles of his shoes a push off of the floor with hers.


End file.
